Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining
by downtownwonton
Summary: Disgusting terrifying monsters? Check. Terrorist group running about? Check. A school teaching kids to fight monsters? Ehh, that's relatively new. To Cloud, this world is almost just like his old world. Except at least here, maybe he can figure out the battling memories in his head. And what's with this feeling of the Lifestream here?


**RWBY and Final Fantasy VII, I do not own. Despite that, enjoy.**

**I. Prelude.**

The buckling of the train rattled snuggly against his back. He stood there, leaning against the walls of the train, arms crossed, as he watched his...teammates bustle about. He felt that teammates sounded too sentimental. If it weren't for the fact that one of them, a large, round, man, he recalled, was shouting up and down the streets of Sector 5 about needing workers to do work no questions asked, he probably wouldn't be here right now.

Of course, being the mercenary he is, he took the job when he found out money was involved. Doing work without asking questions? That was basically the ideology that got mercs their meal for the day and then some.

So yes, the term "teammates" sounded too sentimental. He held no association towards them until very recently, and the only ties that held him to them was the money. Colleagues, maybe? Or cohorts. He snorted. Who even says 'cohorts' anymore?

...And he didn't even know their names.

Dull sky blue eyes constantly switched between the four people in front of him.

"Hey Biggs, what's this?"

"Hey, no! You're not supposed to eat that! Wedge!"

"What do you mean 'eat'? I'm feeling it through my mouth!"

He watched the spatz with mild amusement. Those two were Biggs and Wedge. A dynamic duo. One of them was large, and he seemed jolly overall. His face was rather baby-ish, and he resembled one of those fat chocobos he'd seen up in the Golden other man was a bit more serious, though it seemed as if he enjoyed the larger man's presence, regardless. He was rather average, in terms of build, and his face was more rugged than the other one.

Unfortunately, he couldn't associate the names with the faces, as their names were tossed up amongst their words, the noisy movement of his two other teammates, and the clacking of the train. It didn't matter. After this, he probably wouldn't see them again. He breathed in deeply and closed his eyes, leaning his head back to rest onto the wall.

"Soooooo...ummm….you're in SOLDIER?" A chirpy voice asked from his right, and his eyes cracked open slowly, meeting the gaze of a brunette. She was relatively puny in comparison to the others, donning a red bandana that helped keep her hair out of her face. Come to think of it, why were they wearing bandanas?

He held his gaze at her apathetically and silently, the question still ringing in the air.

After a few more seconds, that to her felt like moments, of silence, she frowned and scratched her head. She awkwardly sighed, "Errr….."

"Ex-SOLDIER," he finally replied, though not dispelling the awkward air around them. She shook her head out of her stupor, and she opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a loud beeping emanating from the cabin.

"Alright y'all, gather up!"

The blaring sound of the alarm almost barely covered the voice. He looked towards the man where everyone began to congregate. The leader, probably. He was a rather burly man, dark-skinned, and...wore sunglasses. Interesting to wear them in a place where you can't see the sun. Although, his most notable feature...

'A machine gun for an arm…?'

Though he wasn't wearing a red bandana like the rest of them, but that's not important.

The man glared at the Ex-SOLDIER, before beckoning for him to join the rest of the ragtag team of eco-freedom fighters.

He shook his head and decided to stick to the wall.

"We'll be approaching the station platform shortly! Once we get there dispatch any guards present on the platform! Then, we make our way to the North Mako Reactor! We rendezvous on the bridge! I'll provide further instructions at rendezvous, but for now...we're approaching the station…"

"Shinra Express 4932, now approaching Sector 1 Platform."

As the train pulled into the platform, smoke and steam, condensed from the oil and water that helped powered the engine, escaped from the sides of the train, accompanied with a loud hissing sound. The perfect chance for an ambush.

"Alright, mission is a go! Through the roof!" The burly man yelled, as his teammates effortlessly and swiftly exited from the emergency exit up above. The machine-gun armed man gazed at the Ex-SOLDIER before following pursuit in his team.

"Time to go." He hefted himself from the wall before jumping up into the small ceiling exit that miraculously fit one of the other members, and his large sword. He was met with the leader of the group watching his team.

From the top of the train, he saw the man, who was with the large man from earlier, restrain a guard in place, while the brunette ran up and incapacitated the guard with a kick. A well executed combo. Though, he wondered why she didn't go for a killing blow. His musing was put to a halt as he heard a yell further down the platform. He saw the large man had picked up a guard and rammed him multiple times into the side of a train, before discarding him onto the ground.

'That's gotta hurt…'

"Alright, newcomer. Let's go," the leader said, jumping down after his team and they ran to the end of the platform.

"Alright then. Hyup!" He backflipped off the train and landed in a crouched sideways lunge. As he stood up, he saw them run into a corridor, and he walked to catch up with them.

As he approached the corridor where the group disappeared into, he heard footsteps coming his way, and not a second later, two guards approached him.

"Stop right there!"

He cracked a small grin, as his hand rested on the grip of his sword, and he charged. Before the guards could even raise their guns, he downed them with one fell swoop. No blood had been spilt however; he considered it for a moment as he charged, but he heard a nagging voice at the back of his head.

'Use the blunt side! If you use the blade, you'll bring about wear, tear, and rust.'

And thus, he only hit them on the head. Hard.

After dispatching the guards, a glint from one of the downed guards caught his attention. Changing his trajectory, he stepped towards one of the guards that the group had taken out, and began to pat him down, eliciting a dazed groan in the process.

'A potion. This'll be useful for later,' he thought as he walked towards the other downed guard, the one that had been rammed mercilessly against the train. Repeating the same procedure had, fortunately, net him another potion. The same can't be said about the two he knocked out, however.

Afterwards, he stepped through the corridor, and he peeked around the streets, wondering where the group went.

"Hey! Over here!" A chirpy voice yelled, and he looked towards the source. The group, sans the leader, stood in front of a gate that led to the reactor.

"Wow! You used to be in SOLDIER alright! It's not everyday someone like you ends up with AVALANCHE!" The large man said jovially, and the brunette beside him straightened up, as if she remembered something.

"Wait," the brunette muttered, "so he really was in SOLDIER? It's hard to believe someone like that would throw it all away for us…" Her gaze flickered to the target of the conversation.

"Y'know, I don't think we ever got your name," the last of them said. He looked at the man who called him out, briefly, before returning to address the woman.

"I told you. EX," he emphasized the 'ex', "SOLDIER. And the name's Strife. Cloud Strife."

"Well," the large man spoke, "I'm…"

"Don't care," Cloud interrupted, "we have a job to do, and I'm pretty sure I won't be seeing you guys again after this."

The man frowned in response. "At least...at least you're doing this for the planet right? Same as us…?"

"Not interested," he replied as he shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, too bad," the averagely sized man pointed to himself, "name's Biggs. The large guy right there is Wedge, and the woman there is Jesse."

He didn't like Cloud's stick in the mud attitude. If he upset Wedge, then he would be upset, because Wedge was his best friend, his ride or die, his brother-from-another-mother. And THEN, Jesse would be upset because he was relatively confident that she harbored feelings towards him, not to be that type of guy, but when the signs were a bit too obvious, he couldn't help but think. Overall, the team morale would become shitty, and don't even get him started on—

"What the hell do you think y'all are doin'?!"

Speak of the devil.

"Y'all fuckin' stupid?! I told y'all not to group up!"

The machine gun armed man ran up to the group across the street. As he met up with the group, everyone, save for Cloud, scrambled to the entrance of the reactor.

"And you," he pointed his machine gun arm to Cloud, " the name's Barret! I'on trust ya one bit! Even if you're an Ex-SOLDIER as you say you are!" And he ran after his team.

Cloud sighed, and he ran after them, the reactor looming over them menacingly from the distance, like an iron fortress.

'What a troublesome bunch.'

* * *

"So this…mako reactor...seeped the lifeforce from the Planet?"

"That's how Barret put it, basically."

"And your solution was to...blow it up…?"

"I needed the money."

"Hmmm. And how much did you get from this...job?"

"I was supposed to get 1500 gil."

"Gil?"

"Money, from where I'm from."

"You weren't paid?"

A grunt of irritation resonated throughout the room.

"Not that it matters anymore."

"You have yet to explain how you got here, you know."

"I know."

* * *

"Hey! You alright?!"

'What...the hell was that…? What happened?'

He found himself collapsed on the ground. Not a moment ago, did this high pitched ringing sound pierce his head. It felt like someone was drilling a hole through his brain, and the migraine he had now was a testament to that fleeting trauma.

"Yo! I asked if you're good!"

He looked to the sound of the voice. Barret frowned, keeping at an 'on guard' position just in case anything happened while he was down.

"I'm fine."

Oh that's right, they were in the reactor core now. Barret had asked him to plant the bomb when he was overcome with the mind numbing screeching noise.

"Oh good, then go plant the bomb!"

"I...this isn't a normal reactor. It's all a blur, but I could've sworn…" Cloud hesitantly said.

"Oh great," Barret sighed, "you sure you didn't hit your head?"

Cloud shook his head.

"Then go do what I told you to do! I ain't payin' you to lollygag and doubt the mission!"

He sighed and stepped towards the reactor core, his steps echoing throughout the hollow chamber.

"Here ya go!," Barret pulled out a tiny device. A makeshift bomb made out of a pipe, with an assorted color of cords connecting to different parts of a computer poorly attached via duct tape.

"This is what I call, AVALANCHE grade tech! The best of the best!" Barret remarked, rather proudly.

Cloud scoffed inwardly, "The code?"

"Put in 7777, and set it to 10 minutes."

As Cloud input the numbers, a sequence of beeps resounded from the bomb. When he was finished, a giant pink "10:00" filled the computer screen. Before he could press it, however, the whirring of a siren fills the relatively silent chamber.

In the mess of the noise, the sound of rapid clanking can be heard, as if an army was running towards their direction.

"Something's coming…," Cloud muttered, as he walked cautiously to the center of the bridge that connected the core to the rest of the building. Barret followed pursuit closely, raising his arm gun and aiming it in different directions.

All of a sudden, silence. The alarm died quickly, as if the power had been cut

off, however the dim lights of the chamber did not cease to exist. Accompanying the silence of the siren, however, so too did the clanking of feet disappear.

_'Where did they go…?'_

"Cloud! Above, look out!"

As if instinct overtook him, he threw himself beside Barret, as a gigantic orange machine slammed into the part of the bridge where Cloud was standing just seconds before.

The two immediately entered a ready position, sizing the machinery up. It was a gigantic thing, with six mechanical legs, a tail and two appendages with claws, making it almost look like a scorpion by design. Its lone green eye shone menacingly, and the cannons along its claws clicked, as if loading its ammo, before aiming it at the two.

"Alright, we're doin' this!" Barret yelled, as he spun up his machine gun.

"I remember this…," Cloud muttered. He had an incredibly vague and cloudy memory fighting something like this. It quickly dispelled as he pulled the gigantic sword from his back.

* * *

"So, you blew up?"

"I did not 'blow up'."

"Yes, but this…Guard Scorpion, as you called it…"

"I'm still unsure about what happened. When it raised its tail, I told him not to attack it while its tail was up."

An irritated sigh. Something was thrown into the air about people being reckless and not listening.

"And he did."

* * *

The cloudy and vague memory resurfaced once again, once the machine raised its tail. Cloud widened his eyes, as he remembered attacking it while its appendage was up. The result was nothing short of devastating.

"Barret! Don't attack it while its tail is up! It'll counter with a laser!"

Cloud heard nothing, but silence; no gunning, no running, nothing. 'At least he heard me…' he thought.

The scorpion stood still, its eye switching between he and the gun-armed man next to him, anticipating when either of the two will attack.

After minutes of nothing, Barret was beginning to get antsy. When would this thing lower its tail? Cloud seemed to know what he was doing. He probably fought something like this before. But even so…

The Guard Scorpion had already taken a hell of a beating, as courtesy of the two. It had electricity seeping from exposed wires from its joints, and it shook from time to time. They were playing the waiting game, but there was no time to wait. They had a mission to get back to. And who knows? Maybe the thing was intelligent enough to stall for time, so that they could get surrounded by Shinra infantrymen. Or worse—SOLDIERs.

So he took the chance. He spun his gun up as quickly as possible, hoping to take it out before it could finish firing its laser.

"Barret, no!"

Cloud rushed over to stop him, or at least redirect his aim so that it doesn't hit the robot, but to no avail. He was just a split second too late to tackle the man before Barret fired a hail of bullets onto the thing, and the rest of the bullets trailed onto the walls of the reactor.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!"

They glared at each other, one for stopping him from dishing the damage, the other for attacking despite him being told not to.

Unfortunately, the few bullets that did hit the scorpion was enough to trigger the laser, and yellow glow quickly emanated from the raised tail.

"Oh sh—"

The laser discharged towards the men, and it exploded underneath their feet. The bridge supporting them fell into the raw mako energy beneath them. Both grabbed onto the railing that connected to the core.

A quick save, but there was still the scorpion across the gap. Now the problem was, how to detonate the bomb and escape in ten minutes with a gaping hole in the bridge, and a mechanical monster just across from.

"You're an idiot."

An irritated grunt came from the man beside him.

"Now how are we gonna get out of this?"

"Wait for the Search Scope to lock onto me, then when it attacks, you jump across. That's when I'll start the countdown. When you're across, get it to turn around and lock onto you. That's when I'll jump, and we just dip from there. No fighting, just retreating," Cloud finished, as they looked at the Guard Scorpion before them.

"Sounds like a plan. I'll stay behind you and fire at it so that it'll lock onto you."

Barret took position behind Cloud and aimed his gun over his head. The gun-arm spun quickly and bullets quickly exited from his arm, and the sound of clanking can be heard from the robot.

"It's locking on…," Cloud said, as he allowed the laser from its eye to scan him.

"It's locked on me, go!"

Barret quickly jumped across, and rolled underneath the robot behind him. He quickly snapped his gun at the robot.

"What the—?!"

The scorpion immediately fired its cannons, but from what Barret could see, the trajectory of the bullets weren't exactly aimed at Cloud.

"Hey! Those aren't bullets, they're rockets! Jump over quickly! It's not aimed at you!"

Cloud's eyes widened as he glanced behind him. It must be something from behind.

As Cloud jumped, he felt the explosion of the rockets. The energy pushed him forward, and he lost his momentum as he jumped. Rather than landing and rolling, much like Barret had done before him, he hit his head on the edge of the bridge, the impact dazing him. Luckily, he held onto the railing there.

"Cloud! You alright?!"

His vision blurred slightly, as he looked up. Green menacingly stared down at blue. He looked behind him, and he saw the bridge where they stood. The wall containing the core and the bomb began to crumble from the impact of the rockets, and he could only imagine what would happen if the bomb detonated within the raw energy.

"Barret! Just go! I'll be fine! I'll meet up with you guys in a bit! But for now…," Cloud shouted, as he felt the railing he held onto creak under tension.

"Hell nah, I ain't leavin' ya!"

"Well if you wanna die here, be my guest! The wall around the core is crumbling, and if that thing detonates within the energy…" Cloud trailed off, before continuing, "Trust me! I'll be fine! Get your team and go!"

"...Awright! But you better live, ya hear?!"

Cloud grunted, as he heard footsteps echoing away from his location. So now this begged the question…

_'Die via dissociating and be ripped apart down to my very particles, or die via excruciating heat and energy, as my entire being disintegrates into dust…?'_

* * *

"So no, I didn't 'blow up'."

"I am aware. Well, Mr. Strife, thank you for sharing your story," the man said, as he leaned back into his office chair, emanating a creak in the process.

Afterwards, silence ensued. Cloud did not know what to say, nor did he not know what was going to happen to him, but it was quickly dispelled, when two knocks came from the door.

"Come in!"

Upon hearing that, a blonde holding a riding crop walked in urgently.

"Ozpin, there's a commotion over in Vale. We identified the cause of the commotion was: Roman Torchwick, who was aiming to steal dust from a shop. Currently, he's in combat with a young girl wielding a scythe."

"Ah...Qrow's niece," Ozpin muttered thoughtfully, his relaxed tone easily contrasted with the blonde's urgency.

"I've just finished interviewing Mr. Strife. Take him with you, and quell the situation," Ozpin concluded, his gaze turning to Cloud.

Both he and the blonde who had walked in were mirroring the same look of surprise.

'I could almost see them being related…,' Ozpin mused.

"I'd like to see you in action. There isn't much I can do about your situation now, however we are currently looking into intradimensional travel thanks to one of our scientists. I can offer you a place here as a student, but for now, you'll be headed with Ms. Goodwitch to Vale. She's your superior, so you'll be under her command, understand?"

A nod.

"Ozpin, I really don't think-"

"Good, now go. Call me when everything's done and over with. I'll have another interview to conduct," Ozpin concluded, as he watched the two exit his office.

**END.**

**Well, that was fun. After reading some RWBY Xover stories, especially of the Naruto and FFVII variants, I figured, why not take a stab? Though, seriously, I'm real sad about the lack FFVIIxRWBY stories that are being updated. Especially the ones with Zack, like "Of Heroes and Monsters" by Special FX. I really liked that one. Anyways, I've predetermined the coupling to be Cloud x Ruby, because well, Ruby is Ruby, and I don't see a lot of Ruby x (XOver character that I wanna see Ruby with), so you know. Yeaaaaah. Anyways, criticism is well appreciated, especially since this is my first attempt at this. But I've got a plan with this, and I'm excited to type them down. With that regard, ciao.**


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